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Lime jelly and the postmodernists

When teach­ing under­gradu­ates about the post­mod­ern nov­el, I give them clues what to look for. One of the easi­est ways to test for post­mod­ern­ism is to ask wheth­er a nov­el is con­stantly point­ing at itself, shout­ing ‘Hey! Look at me. I’m a work of fic­tion!’ So Extremely Loud and Incred­ibly Close by Jonath­an Safran Foer is post­mod­ern, but Richard Ford’s The Lay of the Land is not. Although both are in my view per­fectly bril­liant nov­els.

Think­ing about atten­tion-seek­ing post­mod­ern nov­els with ‘nov­el-ness’ writ­ten all over them reminded me of that phase in food when everything was served inside itself. So cab­bage was made more post­mod­ernly cab­bage-ey by being presen­ted as soup inside a hol­lowed out cab­bage. ‘Hi’, it drawled smugly when it got to the table. ‘Did you know that I’m 100% pure cab­bage? Just look at me. I’m so damn cute.’ Mush­rooms, apples, pota­toes, pump­kins were made more floun­cily, show­ily them­selves by being cooked inside their own skins. I’m not really a fan of any of them — espe­cially the cab­bage. Mak­ing the hole in the cab­bage both large enough for a serving of soup as well as suf­fi­ciently leak-proof, involves using such an extraordin­ar­ily large spe­ci­men that quite hon­estly you need to eat alone in order to have enough room at the table.

But when it comes to post­mod­ern food, I will always make an excep­tion. Do you remem­ber those scooped out jelly oranges we used to have at children’s parties? Half an orange filled with orange jelly is just pure, unadul­ter­ated pleas­ure in my opin­ion. So, as a treat for post­mod­ern­ists every­where, here’s some­thing to lift your poor, jaded spir­its. But be care­ful — if you lift your spir­its too much, you won’t be post­mod­ern any­more.

Postmodern Lime Jelly — with stripes

I am indebted to the won­der­ful Bom­pas & Parr jelly book for advice on quant­it­ies and tech­niques. I would serve these jelly wedges with mojito cock­tails. Why have a lime wedge when you can have a jelly wedge?

For the Clear Lime Jelly

6 limes

125ml sug­ar syr­up — make this by bring­ing 125mls of water to the boil, remov­ing from the heat and then stir­ring in 125g of caster sug­ar until it dis­solves

150ml water

5 leaves gelat­ine

Half the 6 limes and squeeze the juice into a jug. You should have 225 ml of juice. Reserve the skins of 5 of the limes to pour the jelly into. Turn the skins inside out and then peel the pith away from the centre, until the skins are com­pletely clean. Put them in the fridge to start chilling. This will help the set­ting pro­cess later.

Save the 6th lime shell for the cream jelly.

Add the water to the juice and the sug­ar syr­up. Pour a little of the mix­ture over the 5 gelat­ine leaves which you have snipped into a heat-proof bowl. After ten minutes soak­ing, place the bowl over a pan of sim­mer­ing water and stir until the gelat­ine dis­solves com­pletely. Strain into a meas­ur­ing jug.

For the Cream Lime Jelly

4 leaves gelat­ine

100 ml water

1 table­spoon sug­ar

Zest of the 6th lime

400ml full cream milk

Cut the gelat­ine up and place it into a heat proof bowl with the water, sug­ar and zest of lime. Allow it to sit for about 10 to 15 minutes and then place over a gently sim­mer­ing pan until it dis­solves. Add the milk and then strain it through a sieve into a meas­ur­ing jug.

Here comes the slow, fiddly part. Rest the 10 chilled lime skin shells inside an egg box or the egg con­tain­er in your fridge. Pour a lay­er of clear jelly into each shell and allow to cool for half an hour or so, or until set. Repeat the lay­ers until the lime shells are full.

You will be left with enough of the 2 dif­fer­ent jelly liquids to make 3 or 4 extra servings in stand­ard moulds.

Once the jelly limes are set, slice them in half again, to reveal the stripes. Pour the moji­tos, hand out the wedges and listen to Leonard Cohen.

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Oh I am totally smit­ten! I am a fan of lem­on sorbet served in a lem­on skin, so these are right up my alley. Cant’ ima­gine a nicer accom­pani­ment to moiji­tos or Leonard Cohen. The stripes are inspired!